{Garden} Tomatoes to pizza sauce

I didn’t do well in the garden this year. I think we had 3 days of rain, total, for the summer, and it was all I could do to keep things alive, and the plants showed the stress. However, I had enough tomatoes to make a big batch of our favorite pizza sauce! We make it based on this recipe from That 1870’s Homestead. There is something so amazing about taking a bunch of raw fruits and veggies and making them into delicious prepared foods. I love it!

Here’s a messy pic of the copy of my recipe.

I didn’t remember to get a pic of the tomatoes when I started, but our roaster pan was heaped with frozen, skinned tomatoes. (They are so easy to skin if you core them before you freeze them, then just run them under cool water and rub a bit and the skins slide right off.)

I let them cook down all day, pressing and stirring them as they thawed. (In a roaster pan, the heat comes from the sides, so I was sure to spatula the sides clean each time, so nothing burned onto them.)

After they cooked down, I scooped the tomatoes into my old fashioned food mill (this one has been around for decades and still works great). This gets all the tomato seeds and tomato skin that I missed out of the sauce and makes it smooth.

I put it back in the roaster pan, then add the rest of the ingredients for pizza sauce. I let this cook down overnight, and then run an immersion blender through it, to make sure the onions and garlic and other herbs are really well pureed. I cook it down more until I can trace lines in it with a spoon. After that, I water-bath can it. We should have enough to last us until next summer now.

I store mine in jelly jars. It is the perfect amount for two pizzas and a little extra for dipping!

But we’re not done yet. One of my favorite ways to use every bit includes dehydrating the leftovers from the food mill and grinding them into tomato powder. I would have had more if I had left the skins on the tomatoes. I need to remember that next year.

I spread the pulp out on dehydrator trays (the kind for fruit leather) and let it dry till it snaps off the tray.

Then I use a spice grinder (really it’s a cheap coffee grinder that we keep specifically for this and for herbs), and whizz it up until it’s a nice fine powder. I want to keep it from clumping though, so I run it through the dehydrator in its powder form for another couple hours just to be sure it is bone dry.

I use this powder all the time in our taco seasoning mix (also from That 1870s Homestead), and add it to sauces and soups to add a boost of fresh tomato flavor. So good! Here’s a page from my homesteading journal of other things you can use tomato powder for.

How about you? How did your garden grow for you this year? I’m already hopeful that next year will be even better as I have a good idea of what beds retain more water and which crops I should put there. Gardeners are always looking forward to next year. LOL